Watch how Great Ormond Street uses WHO checklist on YouTube

doi:10.1136/bmj.b518

Published 10 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b518
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b518

Letters

Surgical safety checklists

Watch how Great Ormond Street uses WHO checklist on YouTube

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We support the National Patient Safety Agency in adopting theWHO surgical safety checklist as a standard of care in the NHS.¹² ³ Indeed, we have adapted the checklist and have been usingit in our cardiac theatres for the past six months: it entailsa simple series of checks and a structured conversation aboutthe patient, and takes minutes to complete. We are now rollingout the checklist to our other operating theatres.

The checklist has helped us to ensure that the same routineis followed for all patients, all of the time. We have an opportunityto deal with problems before they become a crisis. Junior membersof the team increasingly feel encouraged to speak up and askquestions, and we have noticed a flattening of the theatre hierarchy.We have produced a training video for our staff which, althoughnot perfect, illustrates how we use the checklist in . . . [Full text of this article]

Barry G Lambert, locum consultant anaesthetist¹, Imran Mushtaq, consultant paediatric urologist¹, Martin Elliot, professor and cardiac surgeon¹, Isabeau Walker, consultant anaesthetist¹

¹ Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, London WC1N 3JH

barrylambert@mac.com